Excitebots – the WTF-iest game of 2009

Five reasons why this robo-frog racer is just plain bonkers

Above: Hit the bowling icon and a set of 10 pins will appear farther down the track. How and why are never addressed, and we’ll never ask

Above: The ‘bots’ mecha-arm can grab a dart, and with a well-timed ‘A’ press you’ll score a few more stars, provided you don’t veer off the track while trying to line up the shot

Above: Here, a soccer ball falls into the track, and the first ‘bot to bump it into the goal get the stars. Don’t fiddle too much though, either smack it in one go or keep on drivin’

Above: Aaaand the ultimate WTF, the clown face asking for a pie. Toss the pie in this hovering, disembodied head and three bonus stars will be yours

We’ve only played halfway through the game, but there can’t possibly be something WTF-ier than the severed head of Bozo the Clown demanding to be smacked with pie… for the purpose of rewarding you with stars. Wha?

We’re huge game music aficionados here at GamesRadar, so any chance we get to share/recommend new tunes is extremely welcome. Not sure if we love or loathe the tunes in Excitebots yet (one of us loves it, others think it’s “noise”), but you have to admit it accentuates the already trippy racing experience. Go 120BPS!

Excitebots releases on 4/20 (also appropriate), and we have to admit we’ll be playing more on launch day. The first week it was in the office we kind of thought “oh hm, it’s Excite Truck again” but there really is a lot going on under the hood, and it’s easily a bit better than itspredecessor.

Our pals down the hall at Nintendo Power said Excitebots “wears its wackiness on its sleeve,” and that’s precisely the case. We’ll leave you now with three of our favorite “awards” for racing with gusto: